[Suggestion] Delete/modify posts in own threads

[shentino]

A simple yet useful moderation option that allows a user to delete and / or modify (two seperate perms) someone else's posts in their own threads.

Such an ability would come greatly in handy for a role-play board, for example, by letting a GM moderate his own threads.

It's also a common feature on other popular boards.

[Nelsaidi]

Yes this would be useful for some boards but allowing users to start moderating their own threads is an issue tbh. Moderation/Administration tools should only be handed out to those users that you absolutely trust, and that is not the genreal public.

For example, i make a post, people make posts, and i edit every post so its a flame war, making it appear every user posted an offensive thing. The moderation log would tell you what has been editted, but then you dont know what is what, and the public (forum users) dont know that it has been editted.

So if you say hand it out to users that you trust, then wouldnt simple one forum moderator suffice?

[shentino]

Perhaps, and in a substantial majority of cases, allowing users to moderate their own threads is unwise.

However there are a few cases where it's appropriate.

Roleplay forums could use it for example to allow GMs to moderate their own campaign threads. In most RP systems I know of the GM is pretty much God. Letting them manage their campaigns without hassling one of the mods every time a user gets out of line would boost efficiency. Many RP sites, due to a lack of this feature, have to dedicate mod time to enforcing membership dicta by the GMs, and in one case an RP forum was evicted to another site completely by the admins due to supervision problems that could have been avoided by allowing GMs to moderate their own RPs. And fancily enough, the forum in question was a phpBB one.

Also, marketplaces featuring auction threads could use it to allow users to moderate their own listings by deleting unapproved posts. In this case, being able to separately manage deletion versus editing is useful.

I would consider RP and market forums substantial enough use cases to make this feature worthwhile. SMF already has it as well.

WRT your comment about "framing" other users for flames, the tell-tale "edited by" signature that would generate would cause the joe job to fail and blow up in the user's face.

Naturally of course this feature would be a permission setting under the discretion and control of an admin who presumably knows what he is doing.

As it is, allowing users to delete their own topics is already a feature.

[EXreaction]

I would be more inclined to say it was a good idea with soft deleting and logs of post edits kept so you actually can tell what was edited/deleted and by who.

[shentino]

That is also a good way to accomodate this.

As it is, it's a major tiebreaker between phpBB and smf.

[keith10456]

I think the suggested feature would be useful for a few niche Boards but not the community as a whole. Moderation of posts by other members should be left to moderators/admins...

Just my 2 cents.

[imkingdavid]

I am a member of a forum whose sole purpose is to facilitate games of Werewolf/Mafia (whatever you want to call it). As such, there is a Game Moderator for each thread in the Game Forums. I am on the Tech team at that board and have created custom code to allow topic authors to edit and delete all posts made in their own threads in the specified forums. The modification was actually fairly simple and I may consider releasing it as a MOD in the future. However, that is what I think it should be left as. Because the boards that would make use of this are few and far between, I don't see it as an essential feature in the core of phpBB.

[idiotnesia]

I like the idea of delete posts in own thread/topic but for modify post I don't think it's a good idea. I agree this should be not in core but in MODS. I know phpbb team work on hooks, I expect the permission system can be extended easily using hook system.

[shentino]

Which is why making them separate permissions is a good idea.

I know of quite a few sites that will host phpbb forums, and most of them don't allow mods.

However, giving this feature a test run as a mod might not be a bad idea.

It would most likely go into the posting perms for forums, either under user or moderator permission sheet.

[rxu]

Generally the feature is being called "Topic curator/moderator" and it's very board-specific. There're MODs implementing this AFAIK.
I'm personally not sure if it's required to be integrated into phpBB release.